[Pro Writing] How to Write Fresh and Alive - Without Notes
A technique that blends the accuracy of research and outlining with a straight-ahead writing method.
(Walter S. Campbell)
There remains another method to be used if the writer’s work is to have the spontaneity, the freshness, the fluid quality which goes with true originality. Technique is always needed, but the application of its rules should always be natural and immediate. Therefore, whatever you may write, always write the final draft without notes, without referring to your earlier versions. )
The book or story which has been written from notes shows it: every reader can recognize the solid chunks of dullness copied from the notebook, the undigested gobs of fact that clog the narrative, the “‘seated mass of information,” as Henry James called it. Of course, every writer has to use notes, has to write several versions of all, or of parts, of his work. But it is fatal to work out the final draft with those notes and those versions under one’s nose.
There is only one way to avoid dullness. That is to write without notes.
If you have a short piece of work to do, and have made notes for it, do not use them on the day you write it. Go over the notes the night before. Then, on rising next morning, go to work without looking at them. Afterward, of course, you may wish to check your work against the notes, to make sure nothing essential has been omitted or falsified.
But if you hope to write really well, you will never write your final version from your notes. If you find that you cannot write without them, you may take it for granted that you are not ready to write your final draft. You have not digested your material.
Of course, in a long piece of work, such as a full-length novel or biography, this method will demand much forethought and planning, long consideration, and a breaking up of the whole project into manageable parts. That is why good books are not produced in a hurry. But the method recommended here will well repay this extra trouble.
One celebrated biographer has declared that, before undertaking to write a full-length biography (100,000 words or more), he first rapidly writes the life-story of his hero in a shorter version of about 15,000 words at top speed, and without consulting his notes at all. In this way he gathers all that is essential together, and deals swiftly with the important events and facts in the most effective fashion. In this brief handling he masters the proportions of his subject, and finds out what are the really vital things to be included. Afterward, he is ready to undertake the longer version—this time also, of course, without immediate reference to his authorities. That is to say, he writes each chapter afresh and without notes, after spending the previous day going over his materials for that chapter.
But whether you undertake long books or short stories, essays Or poems, try to know your material so well, and have it so well in hand, that you can write the final draft without the aid of notes and authorities. Until you can do so, you are not ready to do your final draft at all. You have not digested your materials. They are not yet your own. Therefore what you write will not be your own, either.
You will not be a writer—only a drudge putting words in a row!
The fact is that, too often, when we think we are revising, we are merely copying our earlier errors.
The method, then, is simply this. When you feel that your story is in the best form you can give it, lay it aside overnight, and write it afresh the next morning without looking at your earlier draft. If a manuscript comes back from the editor, read it over, make up your mind what is wrong. Then, next morning, rewrite it afresh, without consulting the rejected version. You will be astonished by the results.
Never write your final draft from notes.
If you follow this rule, your work will never lack the sweep, the follow-through, the unity, coherence, and spontaneity which all first-rate work must have.